WR: January 9 – January 15

The Breaking Point

The end of this week marks the end of the third six weeks and the first semester. School is officially halfway over. Finally, after months upon months of effort, sweat, and sleepless nights, I had finally reached the point where not only I, but also many others would be tired of everything coming at us. However, even if it means I must shift my way of getting every single one of my works done, I will endure and move past this breaking point.

The ISM Research Showcase put every single one of us ISM members at the highest level of tension. While we had triumphed past every single obstacle behind us such as the Business Symposium, the fact that we were able to hold an event at the Ford Center at The Star still didn’t feel real, and I’m almost completely sure that it the realization will not hit us until next week, when we are actually standing on the stadium floor. However, to make it to that floor, I must first get past all the trials lying in front of me right now. I must put the final touches onto my original work, board, and binder so that they bring out the best in both appearances and practicality.

My board, as discussed last week, incorporated the three colors of gold/mustard yellow, silver, and navy blue. Furthermore, last week I talked about how the borders were mustard while the inside of the board was silver. With a severe lack of blue, I knew that the navy blue would pop out of the silver.Therefore, when I printed out all of my sheets that I would glue onto my board, I cut off about half an inch from all sides to give them a navy blue border. However, a good majority of my papers would be posted on the side, leaving little to be seen on the center. Therefore, I wanted to add objects that would appeal to onlookers and bring them to my board. I added a pair of skeleton feet to the middle of the board and arms on the side so that the board looked much more appealing. However, I had an idea to make it look much better. Many people in Liberty ISM were cutting out a rectangular-shaped board to put on top of their board to act as a title. I cut out the letters of “Orthopedic Surgery” and taped some string to the back of them. Then I would wrap the string around the hands that were raised. Not only would it stand out, but it would really fit the overall theme. With all this prepared, I was very excited for Research Showcase, but I was soon able to hear from my mentor that he would not be able to make it to the event. While I was disheartened, I knew that I couldn’t stop working and could only show to him over time that I deserved to be his mentee.

The amount of tests, quizzes, chapter checks, homeworks, and all other kinds of work also continued on. There was no point in getting upset, yet, like the intro paragraph stated, I was quickly reaching my limit. The lack of sleep from trying to commit to everything only made my condition worse as it would make me fall asleep in class. While I couldn’t prevent that much from happening, I knew that I had to maintain this level of concentration for next week as I only deserved to rest after finishing all of my tasks. Speaking of tasks, my original work posed quite a worry. After everyone in my class had compared their original work, it seemed somewhat lackluster in comparison. I know that it was only a case study, but I wanted to make it stand out because it was a case study on a condition very close to me. Therefore, I took any and all criticisms to my work and edited it. I added much more content, created a small table of contents to organize the work better, added much more information related to the postoperative events, and cited many more articles that helped better my case study. There was almost nothing else I knew to add by the end of it, yet I still wanted to make it better. However, I will transfer those feeling onto my next big project, my final product.

A breaking point occurs when there is too much stress on an object. Well, I feel that I have always been living past my natural breaking point because every week challenges me in some new way. While I may feel stressed out, I will try to never be broken. After all, you cannot break something that has been strengthened by the exact forces that have tried to destroy one.